Housel’s newsletter this week is fascinating. Think about it next time you are “up against a wall”  – wanting to make a wise decision.

A FEW STORIES ABOUT BIG DECISIONS

By Morgan Housel

In 1964, Warren Buffett owned shares in an old industry company with fading prospects.

The company’s CEO viewed Buffett’s purchase as a threat to his job security, and offered to buy the shares back at a premium. Buffett was eager to sell, tired of watching the business struggle.

The two struck a deal: The company would buy all of Buffett’s stock at $11 1/2 per share.

Buffett received a letter shortly after formalizing the deal. The company would still buy all of his stock, but at $11 3/8 per share.

“It really burned me up,” Buffett recalled. “You know, this guy was trying to chisel an eighth of a point from having, in effect, shaken my hand saying this was the deal.”

Buffett confronted the CEO, who argued there was never a deal to begin with. That made him even more incensed.

So rather than selling, Buffett began buying as much of the stock as he could.

He eventually purchased more than a third of the company.

Biographer Alice Schroeder writes that, above all, Buffett’s motivation for buying more of the company’s stock was to stick it to the CEO who tried to screw him out of twelve cents per share.

The company – Berkshire Hathaway – became Buffett’s masterpiece.

Pablo Neruda’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature (excerpt), December 13, 1971,

There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song — but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny.

Our original guiding stars are struggle and hope. But there is no such thing as a lone struggle, no such thing as a lone hope. In every human being are combined the most distant epochs, passivity, mistakes, sufferings, the pressing urgencies of our own time, the pace of history.

(…) 

The Need to Not Need Help

Hello TB Readers! Happy Sunday, I hope.

Today I am featuring Andrew Bosworth’s latest blog post on getting “it” done. He is a husband, uncle and father as well as a Harvard grad and CTO at Meta in California. Below is his refreshingly honest reason for blogging.

I started this blog with the goal of sharing a few of the lessons I’ve learned in my career. As I have been writing I’ve found myself fighting a desire to make myself look better. A big part of me wants to present myself as some kind of sage who has always been wise. But that isn’t true. I learned most of these lessons the hard way. Shame is a powerful force in our society and prevents us from sharing our lessons. We protect ourselves from criticism but also prevent people from connecting with us meaningfully. Shame begets more shame. Maybe by me talking about these things people will think less of me. But someone else will connect with it and maybe avoid the same mistake, or maybe even share their own.

Whoa… Right?

Bosworth’s comments apply to each of us personally as well as professionally. After you finish, ask yourself: “In the last couple of months: what could I have handled better, if I had read the following sooner?”

A young man asked Nick Cave (whose son died prematurely a few years ago) how he could transcend his usual self-absorbed way of being to become a better son for his father, who had suffered a serious stroke and was unresponsive, but unexpectedly smiled when his son played Nick and the Bad Seeds’ recording “Dig Lazarus Dig” at his hospital bed.

I’ve said it before… there’s something about Nick’s ability to astutely answer his readers’ questions and then go beyond – to make a real difference in the questioners’ lives.  

Article  

Morgan Housel rocked my boat with his most recent column.

Would you consider actually writing down the answers to his questions? I intend to…it’s one way to stay clean of being an effete snob.

Here’s to not-conning ourselves!

Vicki

A Few Questions

by Morgan Housel

Whose life do I admire that is secretly miserable?

What do I believe is true only because believing it puts me in good standing with my tribe?

Which of my current values would be different if I were raised by different parents?

What do I believe the most with the least amount of evidence of it being true?

Who has the right answer but I ignore because they’re a bad communicator?

Who is full of it but I pay attention to because they’re a good communicator?

What do I think is ambition (a good trait) but is actually envy (a terrible one)?

What annoys me about other people that I sometimes do myself?